Tax on air fares to help out Africa

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The Group of Eight industrialised nations have decided to
consider imposing a levy on airline tickets to finance extra aid
for Africa, a proposal which has run into opposition in Europe and
the US.

After a meeting of G8 finance ministers in London on Saturday
agreed to write off poor country debts, German Finance Minister
Hans Eichel said the group was now working on using income from
airline traffic to help aid.

"The air ticket tax: this is now on the working program of the
G8. No one in the G8 has said anything against it. It's now on the
agenda," Mr Eichel said.

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown said the G8
was happy to work with the French and German governments, which
were looking at how the airline ticket levy would finance aid.

A proposed voluntary airline tax on flight tickets sold in the
European Union to help fund extra aid for Africa had faced
opposition within Europe.

The US also opposed the idea and US Treasury Secretary John Snow
made clear the US position had not changed.

However, Mr Snow said if other countries wanted to look at
proposals to fund aid for Africa in this way, the US would have no
objections.